The Extreme Sky: Sampling the Universe above 10 keV
Start date: 14 Oct 2009
Address: Castello Aragonese,
Otranto,
Lecce, Italy
All-sky surveys form the foundation of observational astronomy as they provide statistics on the types and distribution of celestial objects which populate the Galaxy and the Universe, the ability to discover new classes of sources, a means of selecting specific types of objects for further studies/observations.
With respect to other surveys, those at high energies (above 10 keV) are particularly interesting as they probe the energy domain where fundamental changes from thermal to non-thermal sources or phenomena are expected, where the effects of absorption are drastically reduced, and a clearer picture of the Universe is possible. This is also the energy range where most of the extreme astrophysical behaviour is taking place, e.g. cosmic acceleration, explosions and accretion onto black holes and neutron stars. Recently a number of surveys have been performed in the keV to TeV energy range.